The dog is chewing into his chest, about to crack through the breastbone and get to the thick meat of his heart inside. Lash took the little bastard in because it was shivering under an abandoned Chevy with six saturate tickets beneath the busted wiper, rain sluicing off the hood and running high in the gutter. Three distended bodies stacked face-down in the backseat. The dog there with its tiny front paw held up–offering it out to Lash like, oh please take me home, look how cute I am, my name is Iwuvyou. Lash has tried this with girls in bars and they just scowl at him, move a few stools down. Talk about loyalty. Now Iwuvyou's snout-deep in your torso, tail wagging like crazy, wippity-wappity. But no, Lash realizes, You're still kicking, and the dog is only licking your chest hair, catching it in his teeth. Because Lash has been sweating in the night and it's pooled there and dried in a salty line down to his belly button. There's something that needs to be said this morning, that's clear, but he hasn't managed to grasp the essence of it yet. He reaches up and puts his hand to his mouth, trying to see if there are any words there. He tugs his lips apart, pinches his tongue. He tastes charcoal on his fingertips.
